Painting is so joyful, especially as I get to create tiny new worlds for our compact mirrors! Here's a peek at the little ballerina that danced from my sketchbook... onto our latest design. Her pose is inspired by an amazing photo of dancer Anastasia Matvienko of the Russian Ballet. Doesn't she look so extraordinarily graceful?

The tiniest ballerina, on my studio desk. She's painted in traditional oil paint, and I use brushes made for tiny nail art designs. Here you can see the nail art brush for scale!

Anastasia is a prima ballerina and soloist at the world famous Mariinsky ballet. You can see more of the beautiful ballet images I used to work on this piece at my ballet pinterest board. I had so much fun celebrating little girls and our ballet dreams in my painting, imagining Anastasia in a glorious pink tutu and princess tiara. She's dancing on a stage of deepest royal blue with, of course, roses at her feet!

And here's another snapshot of this ballerina in progress... I do so hope you'll love this new design!

Painting in her dress, with a scarlet layer to begin. You can see quite how huge my fingers loom in this image. Excuse my nails! The ballerina really is tiny... and she's even smaller on her compact mirror stage!

My finished painting, with roses scattered at her toes! The royal blue stage looks so pretty in the compact mirror, as when set under the tempered-glass dome it really glows...